menu-content dependencies are a Bad Thing

I'm not sure if this belongs under 'feature request' or 'bug report', but the dependencies between menus and content are causing me a lot of grief.

Specifically, the fact that a menu item must be linked to a corresponding functioning path seems unnecessary and unwise. For example, I've been working with the panels 3 alpha, and as the result of some alpha kinds of problems I had to delete a panels page that was linked from the top level of the primary menu. When I did so, the corresponding branch of the menu disappeared completely from the admin interface, and at that point you're flying blind. I attempted to resuscitate the menu by creating another page with the path in question, but for some reason it didn't work, so I've had to resort to hacking at the menu tables directly. In the process I also discovered some disconnected menu items in the tables that are inaccessible to the admin interface.

I'm sure there's some reason this dependency exists, but frankly, it simply shouldn't. Menus should exist as they've been defined regardless of whatever might happen to site content. If there's no path defined, there could just be a status flag in the admin interface.